Washington Journal: Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon's Downfall

Product Description

“Forty years after the greatest scandal of the American presidency, Washington Journal remains fresh and riveting, instructive and evocative.” ―Tom Brokaw

Re-issued forty years after the tumultuous events that led to Richard Nixon’s historic downfall, a new edition of the legendary Elizabeth Drew’s Washington Journal, featuring a brilliant new afterword.

Originally published soon after Richard Nixon's resignation, Elizabeth Drew’s Washington Journal is a landmark work of political journalism. Keenly observed and hugely insightful, Washington Journal opens in 1973 and follows the deterioration of Richard Nixon’s presidency in real time.

With her unprecedented access to the top figures, Drew’s on-the-scene reporting is even more remarkable in hindsight, as Washington Journal does what no other book about that period has done or could do: captures the feeling of the period and reports in real time conversations with the key decision-makers as they made up their minds about the most fateful vote they would cast. It also shows us the sense of fear among both close observers and the citizenry, as well as their nervous laughter at the era's absurdities. Elizabeth Drew understands Richard Nixon as well as this most complex figure can be understood, and she shows how he brought himself down. In Washington Journal, Drew takes us along on what she calls "a wild ride through history."

This new edition includes an important new afterword, which reveals the fascinating―and frequently hilarious―story of Nixon’s efforts to regain respectability after he’d been forced from office, and it also offers original insights into the meaning of Watergate and Richard Nixon. Rich with new information unavailable at the time, the afterword is a major addition to a truly unique and enduring work of reportage.

"Unquestionably the best book yet on Watergate, and conceivably the best we will ever get."
—Greil Marcus, Rolling Stone

"Superb . . . [Drew] has succeeded admirably in coolly, clinically, meticulously recording the way it was. Her work is bound to be indispensable."
—The Washington Post

"It does something no other Watergate book does: tells the story not as a tidy tale with a clear beginning and an inevitable end, but as an experience thick with confusion, rumors, alarm, and half-truths."
—Ezra Klein, Vox

“Of all the books on Watergate, this is the one that will last.”
—John W. Gardner

“Elizabeth Drew made me feel again the strong emotions of those extraordinary months in 1974 when Richard Nixon was unmasked―the doubt, the tension, the relief. It was a time in our lives when the Constitution came alive, and she makes us understand how it happened. It is wonderful to be reminded.”
—Anthony Lewis

“A journal so meticulous, so coolly absorbing as to render the year almost reasonable.”
—Joan Didion

“A sober, thorough, and sensitive report.”
—The New York Times Books Review

Elizabeth Drew is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and the former Washington correspondent of The New Yorker and The Atlantic. She is the author of fourteen books, including The Corruption of American Politics, also available from The Overlook Press.